Arrangements and Obligations
by D.K. Archer
Summary: Written for a contest challenge.  Peasley&Luigi.


Arrangements and Obligations

Fandom: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

Warnings: Contains slash of the Luigi/Peasley variety. Just a little.

The simple truth of the matter was Prince Peasley did not want to marry her.

There was nothing wrong with the girl, of course. She was pretty, charming, well liked by her peers and clever to boot, and he'd heard nothing but glowing praise from even the most vicious of court gossipers. She was, to all appearances, absolutely perfect. He had no doubts she would make a dutiful wife, a wonderful princess and even a wonderful queen someday, and at the court celebration when his mother had introduced him to his new fiancé everyone had gotten along together splendidly.

And he did not want to marry her.

He could hardly voice this to his mother, of course. She'd gone through a lot of effort to find someone like Isolde. The girl was of the correct breeding, regally blue-blooded but of a distant enough relation not to trouble anyone. She was beautiful, because his mother knew Peasley prided himself on looks. And she was perfectly tempered and a glowing conversationalist, because he knew his mother hoped he would find in her a companion, and not just a woman to bear the next in line. She had been considerate and kind in her selection, as he knew she would be. She couldn't have made a better choice, and for that, he supposed he should be grateful. He was, after all, 23, and he knew the court wouldn't allow the subject of marriage to go unaddressed for much longer. The knowledge hadn't made him feel any better when it was finally brought up.

The engagement had been announced two months ago, a week after first meeting the girl. He could have refused, of course, he knew his mother wouldn't force him to marry Isolde if he felt strongly enough on the issue, but he was the only heir, and he would have to marry someone. It would only delay the inevitable for another few weeks, to refuse. They'd gone out on the balcony together with a crowd of citizenry down below and everyone had cheered as the announcement was made, him delicately holding her gloved hand and smiling appropriately for everyone. And she'd looked flushed and pleased and perfectly radiant, and he knew they were mostly cheering because she was beautiful. The people loved a beautiful princess more than they loved a good one, and she was both, so they were happy. Prince Peasley had felt vaguely ill at the time.

Since then the castle had been filled with people arranging the wedding. Seamstresses had come in by the droves to dress his new bride in the finest embroidered silks and stitched pearl, and he'd had to sit through meetings with tailors, being measured and consulted and telling them to do whatever they thought was best, because they'd know better than he would what he ought to look like on his wedding day. He knew his tailors would talk to the seamstresses and together create stunning works. As much as he could, he left everything is Isolde's capable hands, trusting her to put together a wedding worthy of a one-day queen.

From what he could see, she wasn't disappointing.

As the date loomed, even his mother was caught in the excitement, meddling in with the servants and the bride and getting her hands dirty. She asked him several times if he was happy, really, truly happy, because it wasn't too late to stop things if he wasn't. They could always find somebody else. And Peasley had kissed her and told her yes, he was happy. The bride, after all, was perfect. The wedding was going to be perfect. And she'd been content with his reply.

Excruciating guest lists were drawn up, revised, and revised again. Invitations were sent and replies delivered and in the days before the wedding guests began to flutter into the palace, all excitement and congratulations and isn't she beautiful, and aren't you a lucky man? And Peasley had said thank you, and yes, she was, and yes, he was. Thank you.

The Mario Brothers came with the last of the guests the night before. Peasley had run into them a few times since the Cackletta debacle, twice on a diplomatic matter and once by accident. On that time, he'd gone back with them to their cottage and drank bitter coffee out of a cracked mug, sitting with his feet on a coffee table and laughing at stupid jokes. The Mario Brothers had discovered that the prince of the Bean Bean Kingdom snorted like a pig when he laughed for real, not the court laugh, which just made the whole thing that much funnier. He'd left grinning and feeling a little lightheaded, and wishing desperately to spend more hours of his life with cracked coffee mugs and tattered old couches instead of pristine palace walls.

It was the night before his wedding, and Peasley invited the Mario Brothers up to his chambers for a nightcap. Mario, of course, didn't drink. He opted to go to their room and get to bed instead of sitting up with a jittery groom who was probably going to drink too much, but a hushed conversation between the brothers left Luigi to look out for the Prince. The fact anyone would think he needed looking out for was amusing, to him at least, and he could settle for just one of the brothers. Luigi was shy, but he had a darker sense of humor and a dirtier mind than his brother, which almost made up for it.

The drink of choice tonight was bourbon. In consideration of the late hour the lights in the room were low, electric lights dimmed in favor of the fire in the one great fireplace, casting orange flickers and shadows across the polished floors of his rooms. Peasley had the bottle at his elbow on the table next to his chair, and he was far outpacing Luigi. Luigi seemed to be taking it easy, still nursing his first bourbon and watching him carefully as they picked their way through conversation, the Prince's replies getting less and less rehearsed and more and more bourbon left the bottle.

Peasley smirked at him from behind his glass, lips wet and slouched in a rather unregal manner. It was nearly midnight. Wedding preparations began in six hours.

"So how exactly did you meet Isolde?" Luigi asked, turning conversation to the wedding at hand. He was not unaware of how miserably drunk the prince was getting, nor how brittle his answers were, how sharp his laugh. He was being careful. The Prince probably just had a bad case of the pre-wedding jitters.

Peasley shifted in his chair, trying to sit up straighter. "How?" he asked. "Would you like the official version or the unofficial one?"

Luigi raised an eyebrow. "There's a difference?"

"Oh yes. You see, officially," Peasley managed to get upright, smoothing back his hair absently. "Officially I met her while visiting her father's estate. And she and I fell into such a whirlwind of romance I demanded she marry me before the fall harvest, and of course, she agreed, because we're just that madly in love." He snorted and took a sip of his bourbon. "Unofficially, the Council got tired of waiting for the 23 year old heir to find himself a prospect. So they found one for me." He smirked. Luigi blinked at him.

"You mean it's an arranged marriage? Can they do that?" he asked, fidgeting with the glass. The concept seemed rather medieval.

"Oh, indeed they can." Peasley smirked again. It wasn't a nice expression. "They can do whatever they want. I'm a prince. My life is lived for the kingdom, even my personal life, apparently. Even my sex life!"

Luigi turned red at that and looked down at his glass. "Why not tell your mother you won't marry her, if you don't want to? Would she really force you?"

"Not really, no. But they WILL make me marry someone." Peasley said, sloshing a drop of bourbon on his knee. "It would only delay the inevitable."

"But you could hold out for someone you WANT to marry." Luigi insisted, but Peasley only laughed again, that wet, bitter, brittle laugh.

"There IS no one I want to marry." He said, and took another drink to try and cover the brittleness.

"But you could find a girl eventually, couldn't you?"

Peasley shook his head. "Not me, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I've no interest in women." The Prince said, satisfied by Luigi's startlement. Luigi looked away quickly, swallowing and face red, and Peasley snorted into his drink.

"Don't act so horrified. Besides, you see the problem."

Luigi nodded, and looked redfaced into his drink. "So…have you ever…I mean…"

Peasley thought about making him finish the sentence, just for spite, but decided to have mercy. "No. No I haven't."

The Silence resumed. Luigi fiddled with his glass and Peasley stared at him from behind his bourbon. After a long while, the Prince laughed. It was a hollow sound.

"It's not fair, you know." He said faintly, staring at his glass now instead of Luigi with an unpleasant, unhappy smirk on his mouth. "I'm getting married tomorrow morning. And I'm going to swear my vows in the church to be with her forever and ever and never love anyone else and never be with anyone else but her. But I never have been." He stared miserably into his bourbon. "I've never even been in love. I'm about to get married, and I've never been in love. I've never…with anyone…."

Luigi couldn't say anything to that. It was late, the sounds through the walls having died off some time ago, and the Prince had drunk a good portion of that bottle by himself. Luigi wasn't sure just how drunk the man was, but in his estimation, he was drunk enough. In the silence, Luigi cleared his throat and set his glass down on the table near his chair. "Come on." Luigi muttered. "It's after midnight, and I think we should get you to bed."

The Prince shook his head miserably, but he didn't protest as Luigi gently took the glass from his hand and set it aside. Luigi offered a hand to pull him up, and the Prince took it, swaying dangerously as he gained his feet and grabbing onto Luigi for support. Luigi waited for him to pull back and stand on his own. The Prince didn't. Feeling vaguely guilty about the few times Mario had had to do this for him, Luigi sighed and guided him across the room, locating the door to his bedroom and pushing it open. He got the Prince as far as the oversized bed and set him down on the edge of it, kneeling down to unlace the Prince's shoes. Peasley just watched him, not even making a token effort to help with himself.

Luigi set the shoes aside and undid the Prince's quarter cape, turning to hang it on the bedpost since he didn't know any other place to put the thing. The servants would put it all to rights tomorrow morning, anyway.

When he turned back, Peasley grabbed him clumsily by the straps of his overalls, dragged him down, and kissed him.

Surprised, Luigi tried to recoil, but the Prince had ahold of him like a drowning man. He put his arm against the Prince's throat and pushed him back, and Peasley jerked back with a gasp, but he didn't let go of his overalls.

Luigi gently tried to pry the Prince's hands away, but Peasley wouldn't let him.

"What-what are you doing." Luigi muttered, knowing damned well what the Prince was doing, but hoping he'd see reason.

Peasley set his jaw stubbornly, and Luigi suddenly wished he either hadn't let the Prince drink as much as he had, or he'd drunk a lot more himself.

"Peasley, let me go." He said calmly.

"Why?" The Prince demanded, tilting his chin up.

Luigi managed to smile, but it wasn't unkind, breath a little shakey. "Because you're getting married tomorrow."

Peasley did not let go.

"Not until tomorrow." He whispered.

Luigi shook his head slowly, and this time, the Prince allowed his hands to be pried away. Luigi kept ahold of them.

"Peasley, you're drunk." He said softly. "And in about six hours you're going to get up, and get ready to marry Isolde. You need to sleep."

Peasley shook his head, shutting his eyes tight with a telltale quiver of the mouth. "I don't want to marry her. I don't want to marry anyone. I've never…."

Luigi sighed and carefully helped pull Peasley up on the bed, and the Prince didn't fight him, just looked at him miserably. When he tried to stand up, the Prince grabbed him by the wrist. Luigi took a breath and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"Go to sleep." He muttered. "This'll seem better in the morning."

Peasley just looked after him, eyes deep and miserable and alone. After a moment, Luigi leaned down and pressed a kiss to the Prince's forehead. Peasley let his breath out in a puff and relaxed against the mattress, shutting his eyes. This time, when Luigi stood to go, he didn't grab for him.

In the hallway outside the Prince's chambers, Luigi let out a breath and slumped against the door. A servant girl passing in the hallway, bleary eyed and exhausted, asked him if he needed anything. Luigi shook his head, and left to find his own way back to his room.

--

When the sun struck the palace the next morning, everything was already in progress. Servants were up and about frantically putting everything together before the deadline, seamstresses were carefully making the final adjustments to Isolde's dress, and the butler came pounding on Peasley's door long before the Prince wanted to be awake. Peasley groaned under the force of his hangover and kicked at the blankets, tangled around his legs as he slept. The butler charged in and pulled him upright, slapping two aspirin and a glass of tomato juice in his hands and ordering him to drink. Peasley obediently swallowed, wishing his hangover gone, and let the butler pull him through the motions of getting ready.

He only saw Luigi once, in the carefully controlled chaos that followed. The man in green offered him a cautious smile as Peasley ran past, trying to eat toast and catch the butler and evade the tailor's assistant who would not leave him ALONE, all at the same time. Peasley didn't stop to return the smile; his face turned red and he quickly looked away, hurrying on as though he'd never seen him. Luigi was alright with that. There were worse things he could have expected, after last night.

But he did notice, at the feast after the wedding, the way Peasley laughed with his new bride. Sitting next to Isolde at the table, Peasley wasn't laughing with the awful pig noises he'd made when they'd been sitting at the Mario cottage, drinking coffee and telling jokes. It was his court laugh, the perfect one, that Luigi had come to recognize as false.

It matched Isolde's perfectly.


End file.
